Economy and Jobs

Debate between Chris Williamson and John McDonnell

Thursday 29th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

I will give way in due course.

Let us measure the impact of that record of tax cuts on the rest of society. It is important that we do so, because the Queen’s Speech promises more of the same. This could have been the Queen’s Speech that ended austerity once and for all, but it certainly does not do that.

This is the record that the Chancellor says he is proud of. Is it a matter of pride for the Chancellor that nearly one and a quarter million food parcels were handed out in food banks over the past year? Are we proud of a Government who cannot feed their population? How can anyone be proud of the fact that more than 77,000 households—an almost 8% increase on last year—were in temporary accommodation this year? How can anyone be proud of the 134% increase in the number of people sleeping rough in this country? There are now 1.2 million households on waiting lists and 70,000 of our children are being brought up in temporary accommodation, while house building has fallen to its lowest level since the 1920s.

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware of research by Professor Danny Dorling stating that Britain is the second most unequal country of the richest 25 nations on earth? [Interruption.] It is not rubbish; it is a fact based on research by an eminent professor. Is my right hon. Friend aware that if we continue on the same trajectory, Britain is on course to be the most unequal nation on the planet within the next decade?

[John McDonnell]

One of the warnings from the Institute for Fiscal Studies is that inequality will increase on such a scale if the Government’s austerity programme continues. Are Government Members really proud that we have a Government who cannot adequately house their population?

Deregulation Bill

Debate between Chris Williamson and John McDonnell

Wednesday 14th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

There are times when one legislates on the principle and then rolls out the practical implications, but I agree with my hon. Friend that in this instance, because of the legislation’s significance and because the detail is so important to whether it is viable, in the three years when the consultation was supposed to be going on we could have drilled down into the detail and then come back with effective legislation, which would have achieved some element of consensus. Instead we have absolute confusion, and in health and safety matters that means risk. I will vote for the amendment, but I deeply regret the way in which the legislation has been brought forward. The risks that will be incurred will affect many of us, throughout all these different industries, but more broadly, as self-employment now grows, not only will self-employed workers be put at risk, but the general public as well. That is why the Minister needs to think again very seriously.

[Chris Williamson]

I rise to speak in support of amendment 72 and I associate myself with the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) on the proposals for the Sikh community, which are a welcome step.

I do not know whether it is because the Solicitor-General is behind the proposal, but to me it represents a lawyer’s charter. My hon. Friend has already made the point that the prescribed list simply adds to the confusion rather than providing clarity. I am a simple chap, an ex-bricklayer who certainly benefited from the health and safety regime, and I would like to know what is wrong with the present legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) referred to the futility of the proposition in terms of those who are self-employed and not at any great risk, but who have never been prosecuted or are likely to take action against themselves in any event, but my real concern is that the Government are creating significant confusion, which will put people at greater risk.

Other hon. Members have made the point that self-employed people are on average twice as likely to die at work as employed workers. At a time when 4.2 million people are self-employed that is a growing concern, and not just for the individuals who are putting themselves at greater risk and who will go to work one day, as my hon. Friend said, and never return. That is devastating for the families of those individuals, and it is a complete waste of human life. In crude monetary terms, it has a negative impact on the economy, because their productive life is lost to the economy.

We have to take account not only of those who are more likely to die, but of those self-employed workers who are more likely to sustain an industrial injury, and this proposal will make matters worse. We have already spoken about people being forced into self-employment and bogus self-employment. People who are in effect employed earners but are forced into a self-employment do not benefit from the protections accorded to employed earners, and that should be a matter of concern for all of us.

I shall take my previous life in the construction sector as an example. Because of the confusion, we do not know from what the Government have said whether self-employed earners working in a domestic setting will be covered, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington has pointed out.

[John McDonnell]

We have only one copy of the list—that is how we have been treated today—but we shall share it. I will give one example, and perhaps my hon. Friend will be able to respond to it. According to the list, construction is covered overall, and a number of activities are listed under construction. However, there are sites where there is no construction going on but there is painting and decorating, which is not listed. If no construction was going on and some self-employed painters and decorators—there are a large number of them—turned up to work on the site, they would not be covered because their work would not be construed as construction. However, painting and decorating is actually quite a risky occupation, for the painter and decorator and for the public, because of the use of ladders, scaffolding and so on.

[Chris Williamson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is potentially an incredibly hazardous occupation, for the very reason he outlines: the use of ladders, scaffolding and so on.

[John McDonnell]

Painters and decorators are not covered, but people on high wires in circuses are. This is getting bizarre.

Badger Cull

Debate between Chris Williamson and John McDonnell

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Williamson]

Policing costs are a significant contributory factor to the overall cost of the badger cull, but we live in a democracy and people have a right to monitor the badger cull and protest against it. We do not live in a dictatorship and those costs have to be factored in.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Is it not important to acknowledge the distress the cull has caused to the wider community overall?

[Chris Williamson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. That distress is not confined to people living in towns and cities; it is felt by rural communities and by many farmers. Dairy farmers have approached me to say that they are extremely distressed by the badger cull and do not feel that there is any justification for it. I see the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) shaking his head, but I can assure him that that is a fact. They are fearful that this folly will make matters worse for them. They want to proceed on a scientific basis and see this disease eradicated. They do not want to see badgers suffering and they certainly do not want to see the situation made worse as a consequence of the folly we have seen so far.

I hope that there can be a rapprochement between those on the Government Front Bench and Opposition Members, and that we can find consensus. To achieve that, the Government must abandon this cull.

Welfare Reform (Sick and Disabled People)

Debate between Chris Williamson and John McDonnell

Thursday 27th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

That is exactly why people feel that the impact is so harsh. Many local authorities have changed the eligibility criteria—that is the problem—to cover only those with substantial needs, which automatically cuts out about 100,000 people from receiving any form of social care whatever.

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is very much a false economy, because cutting back on social care will inevitably lead to people’s conditions tending to deteriorate, meaning that they will need more urgent care and that many of them will find themselves in hospital? Consequently, the cost to the public purse is substantially greater as a result of this false economy and these cuts, which are so devastating to disabled people.

[John McDonnell]

That is exactly right. There are three consequences from what is happening. First, disabled people are being forced more and more to rely and depend on care from their own family members, who are themselves, to be frank, overstretched in providing that care, especially as local authority respite care is now being cut back so dramatically. Startlingly, as we found in a previous debate, a large number of these carers are children caring for their parents. A year-long investigation by Carers UK confirmed that carers, who save this country an estimated £119 billion a year in care costs, are about to lose £1 billion in benefit cuts.

Secondly, the care needs of many disabled people are simply not being met. A recent inquiry by the all-party groups on local government and on disability found from the evidence they took that four in 10 disabled people are failing to have their basic social care needs—which my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) has mentioned—met.

Thirdly, as my hon. Friend has said, the withdrawal of social care and support services is cutting many people off from any form of social contact with the outside world. Many are driven back into their homes, while others are forced out of them, losing all their independence, and into residential care or even hospital care as a result.



Alongside cuts to social care, there are the mounting cuts in welfare benefits. Like most hon. Members, the vast majority of disabled people whom I have met are, like any other employed person, desperate to work and support their family with a regular wage. For some, the tragedy is that their disability is so severe that they will never be able to work and will have to rely on welfare benefits to ensure that they do not live in poverty, while others need positive and sensitive practical support to help them to get back into work or to work in the first place.

The system introduced during the past six years to support people in securing work or the appropriate benefits could not have been better designed to undermine disabled people’s ability to get into work or receive the appropriate benefits to assist them. The previous Government started the process of reassessing all those on incapacity benefit to see whether they could be assisted back into work, and if not, to ensure that they had the right level of financial support. They introduced the work capability assessment, and brought in Atos to implement it. That might have been well intentioned in theory, but in practice, thousands of disabled people have been caused untold suffering, humiliation, stress and, at times, absolute despair.

TfL (Funding and Station Staffing)

Debate between Chris Williamson and John McDonnell

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[John McDonnell]

That is the running theme through all the comments we have had.

The Campaign for Better Transport stated:

“Plans to close ticket offices and cut staff in stations will mean passengers are left to fend for themselves when buying a ticket and will result in people paying over the odds for their journey.”

If there are 17% fewer staff to help passengers, then what? As my hon. Friends have said, staff help with incidents, accidents, advice on what route to take, directions to local venues or addresses, disability access needs, lost property and yes, lost children and everything else, as well as service updates and many more issues that passengers cannot deal with on their own or via a machine. The remaining station staff, to be frank, will be less available to help with travel and other inquiries, because they will be busy helping people to use the ticket machines who would have previously have sought help at the ticket office.

Passengers also need some types of help that a station supervisor has to deal with, in particular the more complex issues for a more senior level of staff. Now there is a station supervisor in every station, but under London Underground’s plans, they will be removed from many stations and responsible for a number of stations instead, so that they might have to travel from another station to help passengers. Staff will be expected to work on several stations over a wider area, so they will be less familiar with the area the station is in and they will often be working in isolation.

There will be an impact on efficiency—all the expert evidence that we have collected says exactly that. Station staff play an important role in keeping the trains moving, such as helping the trains to depart promptly, reporting faults and providing information and advice during service disruption. Station staff work with other London Underground staff, such as drivers and service controllers, to keep the tube running. If there are fewer staff in stations, the train service will suffer. The London Underground plans to remove station supervisors from many stations will slow down service recovery during and after disruption.

Station supervisors also play a critical safety role. London Underground plans that such essential staff will be in charge of several stations at the same time, so they will be unable to deal in person with the many safety incidents and issues. It intends to plug some of the gaps in staff coverage with a casualised work force of agency staff, as well as having office staff who occasionally work on stations, away from their normal duties and with minimal training. In many people’s view, that will compromise safety. I agree.

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has obviously focused on the implications for London. I represent a constituency in the midlands, and my real fear is that if Boris Johnson and London Underground get away with these reckless cuts to staffing on stations on the London Underground network today, it will be the midland main line and other surface railway networks around the country tomorrow. Does my hon. Friend share that fear?

[John McDonnell]

My hon. Friend has made a valuable point. What happens in London is usually the example that is then rolled out to the rest of the country. This issue is critical not just for London but nationally. Ministers have a role in this matter, which should not just be left to the Mayor of London.

There are already issues with station staffing as there have been cuts in the past. In outer London, many stations are already neglected and are not well staffed. Transport for London responded to questions from members of the Greater London assembly on this matter by saying that on average stations have to be closed on 120 occasions a year due to staff shortages.

Local Audit and Accountability Bill [Lords]

Debate between Chris Williamson and John McDonnell

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

This is barmy. It is absolutely crackers that we are spending parliamentary time on this matter. I receive Hillingdon People from my Conservative-controlled local authority. On virtually every page, there is a picture of a smiling Conservative councillor pointing at something, standing on something or expressing some view. Interspersed with the smiling photographs is genuine information about what is happening in the local community. People tell me that the newspaper is an ideal size for lining a hamster cage, so it serves some useful purpose in the local area.

Today, the Government have announced the commission report on the expansion of aviation, which includes the threat to my constituency from the third runway. I have been assured that there will be cross-party opposition on my council to the Government’s proposals. We will use Hillingdon People to explain the proposals that have been introduced. We have used it in the past to explain the proposals of all political parties. Undoubtedly, views will be expressed by councillors on a cross-party basis condemning the commission’s proposals and, almost certainly, the Government’s approach. Does that mean that we will then be hauled before the Secretary of State to be advised on the words that we can use about this matter and on the way in which Hillingdon People will be used?

The one good thing about local newspapers is that they reflect local opinion. There might be an overbalance of photographs of a certain party, but for all that they are a useful tool in mobilising local opinion around a local issue, and they are campaigning tools for a local authority in genuinely reflecting the views of the local populace who elected them.

My local council has certainly consulted local people and supported local meetings to ensure that people can express their views on the extension of Heathrow. It has then reflected those views in Hillingdon People, and launched campaigns on the basis of what local people have said. At my last public meeting on this matter, a campaign called “Back Heathrow” was spuriously launched by the aviation industry to support Heathrow airport expansion. It was completely funded by Heathrow airport and run by its public relations agency. People then said to me that Hillingdon People should be used to put out accurate information, rather than the spurious propaganda that the airport was putting out. I am anxious that my local authority, which will go on the stump on this issue, may be debarred from using Hillingdon People to explain what its views are and to campaign against the expansion of Heathrow airport.

I would be grateful to the Minister if we heard his views. By the looks of it, he will now be the editor-in-chief of Hillingdon People, so I would welcome his views now before we put a foot wrong. Is it in order, under this Bill, for Hillingdon council to use Hillingdon People to campaign against Heathrow expansion and to disseminate information that will be opposed to the commission’s views and what seems to be the emerging view about a third runway at Heathrow?

[Chris Williamson]

I rise to speak against this Orwellian clause and in favour of the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Andy Sawford). He is absolutely right to say that the Government are seeking to put the Secretary of State in the position of censor-in-chief. We live in the United Kingdom. I thought that the Government believed in freedom of speech and the free press, but it turns out that that is not the case when it comes to publications produced by local authorities. It is clear that the Secretary of State is setting himself up as some sort of Orwellian big brother figure. If the clause goes through, the Department for Communities and Local Government should be renamed the ministry of truth. It is all right for the DCLG to issue draft press releases praising the Government. As my hon. Friend the Member for Corby said, as long as local government is praising the policies of central Government that is okay, but if it has the temerity to point out that in some way what the Government are doing might have a negative impact on the communities that they represent, then woe betide them; that is not acceptable. When the Secretary of State seeks to take that kind of power to himself, we have to ask what kind of country we want to live in. This is completely wrong. Just look at the document—it could be a Tory hand-out. It has even suggested the headline that the local authorities might like to put on their press releases. It reads, “Pickles praises troubled families programme”—so, big up the Secretary of State, but, whatever you do, do not say anything that could be interpreted as negative.

My hon. Friend the Member for Corby pointed out that there is absolutely no evidence suggesting widespread abuse of the voluntary code. Indeed, we would be hard-pressed to find any example, let alone widespread examples, so this provision is completely over the top. We have talked about using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but it is more like using a pile-driver to crack a minuscule nut. There is no example of any abuse. It is clear, therefore, that the Secretary of State is seeking to set himself up as the censor-in-chief.

In Committee, I challenged Government Members to come up with some examples of the abuses that merit this heavy-handed legislative response. The first out of the traps was the hon. Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham), who came up with the ludicrous assertion that legislation is merited to stop a photograph of the Labour leader of his local borough council appearing in the council newspaper with a Labour party pen. A pen with the Labour logo on it was an abuse that merited legislation—talk about crackers, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said. It is unbelievable. We are talking about legislation to stop local authorities publishing their council newspapers, giving information to the local community about matters affecting them, and it is suggested that the Secretary of State should be put in charge because a Labour leader appeared in a council newspaper holding a pen with a Labour logo on it.

The hon. Member for High Peak must have scrutinised that photograph with a magnifying glass to be able to see the logo, let alone to suggest that it would influence people. He dug himself an even bigger hole by comparing it with product placement, which is banned on the television. He said that we do not see packets of cornflakes on the table in “EastEnders”. Crackers really does not cover it.

Local Audit and Accountability Bill [Lords]

Debate between Chris Williamson and John McDonnell

Monday 28th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I want to address three issues. The first is the Bill’s failure to acknowledge the fears for probity in local government, the second is its failure to address the structural and procedural breakdown of accountability and the third is the new code of practice for council newspapers.

We usually preface such debates by explaining our background in local government, and I am trying to address these matters completely objectively and without being partisan in any way. I do so as someone who has worked on the front line of a social services department, who was the head of policy of a London borough and who then became an elected member of the Greater London council, chair of finance and deputy leader before going back to being a bureaucrat in local government as the secretary—they now call them chief execs—of the Association of London Authorities, then the cross-party body of the Association of London Government. I have done my time, I suppose, over 25 years in local government.

There are fears for accountability and probity that the Bill does not seem to acknowledge or address. I wonder whether Members have seen the report published this month by Transparency International UK. Many of us will have worked with that organisation—which monitors corruption and probity, particularly in developing countries around the world—in the context of our countries of interest. I have, particularly on Kenya and other African countries.

The organisation monitors corruption in government throughout the world—establishing league tables, as some Members will recall—raises awareness of it and advises civil society and Governments on how to combat it. I urge Members to look at the report it has published this month, entitled “Corruption in UK Local Government: The Mounting Risks”. Let me quote the executive summary and some of its recommendations, which I will want to try to insert into the Bill as we discuss it in detail.

The good thing about the report is that it says there is not much evidence of corruption—but that is because what evidence there is, is anecdotal, although part of the problem is that not a lot of research has been done. The report found that although there was no agreement on the levels of corruption in local government, there was agreement across the board about the “disturbing picture” whereby

“the conditions are present in which corruption is likely to thrive”.

The report states that those conditions are

“low levels of transparency, poor external scrutiny, networks of cronyism, reluctance or lack of resource to investigate, outsourcing of public services, significant sums of money at play and perhaps a denial that corruption is an issue at all.”

The report goes into some detail about the checks and balances for accountability and probity in local government and is critical of the previous and current Governments’ performance, which undermined some of the processes of transparency, particularly the awarding of public contracts, the overseeing of their implementation and the growing tendency to outsource provision and transfer personnel between public and private roles—the revolving door syndrome that occurs not only in central Government but has gone into local government. The report also states:

“Planning decisions remain highly discretionary and are vulnerable to corruption in several areas.”

Allegations and incidents have been recorded—not at any high level, but they exist—of bribery in local government, collusion, conflicts of interest and corruption-related fraud. Of course, we have also seen examples of electoral corruption prosecuted in Birmingham and elsewhere. The report refers to a number of changes in legislation, particularly this Bill, that undermine the climate, procedures and structures that would address corruption and protect us from it.

Let me go through some of the criticisms of this Bill and some of the other legislation introduced by the Government. Transparency International UK is concerned about the abolition of the Audit Commission, as there will not longer be a “back-stop” to provide support and work to protect against corruption. There will be

“no institution with wider powers of public audit to enable criminal investigations, which the Audit Commission used to have”.

There will be

“no institution to collect nationwide data on fraud and corruption or analyse trends”,

and:

“New external audit reports will not be adequately covered by the Freedom of Information Act”.

That point has been raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn). The report also states:

“Local authorities will have a reduced internal capacity to investigate fraud and corruption, due to austerity measures”.

Those concerns will build up to create a climate in which there are fears for probity. The report also states:

“The responsibility for investigating and detecting fraud and corruption is being delegated to lower-level officers”

in local government. It continues:

“Audit committees are weakened and may disappear because there is no longer a statutory requirement for an audit committee to be a full committee in its own right…External auditors appointed under the new arrangements may face incentives to avoid undertaking investigations or raising concerns about suspicions of fraud or corruption.”

The report expresses its concern that:

“There is no longer a universal code of conduct to provide clarity to members serving on different public authorities and committees…There is no longer a requirement for members to declare gifts and hospitality and no legal requirement for either a standards committee or the monitoring officer to check any register of interests on a regular basis”.

Again, that is not addressed by the Bill. The report goes on:

“There is no longer a statutory requirement for a council to have a standards committee…There is no longer any obligatory sanction for members that violate the local codes of conduct”

and there is an overreliance on party discipline as the main sanction. It states:

“Since the abolition of Standards for England, there is no longer a national investigations body for misconduct.”

As the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) mentioned, that means that some local authorities might struggle to appoint independent people

“of the appropriate calibre and legitimacy to perform the new role”

under the self-regulatory system of panels. The report says:

“The system relies too heavily on the new offence of failing to declare a pecuniary interest”,

and, of course:

“The ability of chief executives, financial officers and monitoring officers to hold elected members to account would be compromised by proposals to abolish their statutory employment protection.”

That all leads Transparency International UK to conclude:

“The Government’s changes, without apparent consideration of the consequences for corruption, are likely to have unintended consequences. The effect of the changes has been to create a situation in which corruption could thrive.”

The report is worrying and when the Bill goes into Committee, it might be worth inviting the organisation to address the Committee or provide evidence so that these matters can be properly discussed with it and its expertise can be drawn in to our consideration of the Bill, which is about local audit, and therefore probity, and local accountability, and therefore democratic accountability.

Some of the recommendations that Transparency International UK suggests could be built into the Bill are worth examining. The first states:

“Private companies, when operating services in the public interest, should be required to comply with the Nolan Principles.”

Secondly, the organisation recommends:

“Legal employment protections should be maintained for key anti-corruption officials, including Chief Executives and Monitoring Officers”.

Thirdly, it suggests:

“It should be a statutory requirement”

in this Bill

“for a local authority to have an audit committee as a dedicated full committee, with a specific remit to oversee corruption risk assessments and corruption investigations.”

It also suggests that now that the audit will be undertaken by private firms, consideration should be given to creating an auditors’ forum on corruption to bring together the private audit firms involved in local authority audit to share information, advice and good practice on the risks they identify in the audit role.

Transparency International UK also recommends that the Government should insist that the research function undertaken by the Audit Commission should continue somewhere within Government to give a clearer picture of the prevalence and scale of corruption in UK local government.

Again, although work has been undertaken by existing structures, such as the national fraud audit that has been taking place in some specific areas, there is no overall responsibility lodged with a specific body to undertake research at a national level.

The report recommends that each local authority should have a nominated individual responsible for counter-corruption who conducts a regular corruption risk assessment and liaises closely with law enforcement authorities. I will not go through the remaining recommendations except for the final one, which states that as work now goes out to the private sector, it is critical that auditors should be allowed to assess the documents from significant private contractors that a local authority has used.

[Chris Williamson]

On that point, is my hon. Friend familiar with the PricewaterhouseCoopers citizens jury which showed that, when polled, the overwhelming majority of the British public favour public services being delivered by public authorities and by directly employed public servants? If services are to be externalised, the safeguards that my hon. Friend is describing would be the bare minimum that the vast majority of the British public would expect.

[John McDonnell]

There is a general worry about what happens after privatisation. My hon. Friend cited a number of examples—rail, energy and others. People are concerned about standards of probity and issues surrounding the exploitation of the resource. There are similar concerns in relation to local government and the use of the private sector. It is important, therefore, that we build safeguards into the Bill to reassure people. I am a great believer in direct provision by the local authority itself, but if there is to be contracting out or outsourcing, it is important that we reassure people that there is a legislative framework that provides safeguards to ensure probity and to counter corruption. Transparency International suggests that that should be built into the legislation. It is important that we listen to an organisation that has the relevant expertise.

The final recommendation deals with freedom of information, which has been raised a number of times in the debate. Transparency International recommends:

“Private companies, when operating services in the public interest, should be required to comply with the Freedom of Information Act with regards to those services.”

As a specific example, it states that

“audit reports from local authorities should be covered under the Freedom of Information Act or published directly as public documents.”

That is not a particularly challenging recommendation. It should be standard practice.

As Members consider the Bill further, I suggest that they read the Transparency International report “Corruption in UK Local Government: The Mounting Risks”, and invite the organisation to provide them with more detailed information and evidence. That might enable us to address some of the concerns that have been expressed and which we all hear from time to time in our constituencies. These may be anecdotal, but the information from Transparency International suggests that there is mounting national concern as well.

My second point is about examples in my own area. The Bill does not seem to address any of the structural or procedural concerns arising from the degradation of accountability within local government. I was hoping that the Bill would go further in ensuring full accountability and transparency in local decision making. To a certain extent I blame the previous Government for the structural problems that we now have in local government. I use my own local authority as an example. I would like to see amendments to the Bill that ensure full transparency of all decision making.

In my local authority, Hillingdon, we have a leader and cabinet system which has centralised powers in the hands of one person—the leader. The leader is able to use exclusive patronage to appoint all the other members of the cabinet, and that patronage then determines the lucrative business of the payments of himself—£65,000 a year for a part-time job, plus expenses—and of every other member of the cabinet, who receive £50,000 to £55,000 each. If any members step out of line, they are demoted. In recent weeks in my local authority, I have seen long-standing experienced senior councillors prevented even from standing again for the local authority.

Transparency International’s report expresses concern about cronyism in local government. In my local area I am witnessing the worst forms of cronyism where the leader appoints everybody, everybody is responsible to the leader, and there are financial consequences if people step out of line. In addition to that, there is nothing in the Bill about the decision-making process in relation to policy, which has also been centralised. In my local authority all decisions, no matter how minor, go through the leader’s office. If any officer loses the favour of the leader, they are out. If an officer provides unpalatable advice to the leader, that is enough for them to be shown the door. That is described among officers in Hillingdon as a reign of terror.

Whistleblowing is not an option for most. In Hillingdon, when people are asked to leave, they go under a compromise agreement, which includes a gagging order. I would like to see in the Bill an end to all compromise agreements in local government and an end to all gagging orders that are implied as part of those compromise agreements, because they prevent officers from providing independent advice or making public their concerns to all members of the council and to the general public.

I want to see the Bill also address the issue of secrecy. The cabinet system means that all major decisions in my area are made in part 2 of the cabinet agenda—that means in confidence and in secrecy. As an officer in the past, I have advised on what should be in part 2 and what should be in part 1 and in public. Decisions which I considered in the past should be made in open committee and information upon which those decisions are made are almost inevitably put in part 2 in Hillingdon—the confidential part of a cabinet meeting. I want to see a provision in the Bill which restricts the ability of members to avoid accountability by putting decision making into the secret part of cabinet agendas.

I shall give a couple of examples to show how ludicrous the practice has become. For the building of a new school in my area, a matter which I have raised in the House before, a consultant was employed to examine which site the school should be built on. It was controversial because the council wanted eventually to build on a country park—a green-belt field about which even the Mayor of London expressed his concerns. The consultant’s report on which sites were examined, all in council ownership, was put in part 2 of the cabinet agenda—the secret part. Even freedom of information requests were refused on the grounds of commercial confidentiality.

We must address in the Bill how councils are allowed to interpret commercial confidentiality in a way that avoids accountability and avoids their providing even the basic information to local members of the public and also to opposition members. Let me give another example. On the same site there was a recent archaeological find of flints. The report from the archaeologist who discovered the flints was put into part 2 of the cabinet agenda on the basis of commercial confidentiality. It might have been commercially confidential 6,000 years ago, but not now. Eventually both reports were released, but not in a timely fashion.

The problem—I say this from a non-partisan point of view—is that an opposition councillor who seeks to reveal anything that is in part 2 of a cabinet meeting is threatened with criminal sanction, so people are fearful of releasing information from part 2. We should address that matter in the Bill. We need to define more clearly what is commercial confidentiality, and what criteria can be used for putting items into the secret part 2 of the agenda for a committee or cabinet meeting. I believe that is being abused, not necessarily for corrupt reasons, but perhaps for party political advantage or because individual councillors do not want to be held to account by local communities.

The Bill refers to audit and some elements of transparency as best it can, but it does not really address accountability and scrutiny. In my borough, scrutiny is virtually non-existent. Scrutiny committees are packed with a majority of party members loyal to the leader and can therefore be controlled by patronage. Scrutiny committees might have been an excellent idea some years ago, but in many local authorities, including mine, they have proved toothless.

There are real concerns about corruption. Advice needs to be provided to local authorities on how independent investigations should take place when allegations of corruption are made, but again that is not covered in the Bill. I will cite an example I raised in the House some years ago relating to the planning incentive grant introduced under the previous Government by the then Department of the Environment. If a local authority considered its planning applications within 13 weeks, it was given an additional grant from central Government, so it was in incentive to improve efficiency. In my local authority—this was proved, and the details published, as a result of what I said in the House—dates and signatures on documents were found to have been forged in order to bring planning application decisions within the 13-week period, even though many were taken later.

Those forgeries were exposed because fortunately one of the planning applications was submitted by a police inspector. He looked at the documentation and discovered that the dates had been changed. In fact, decisions on his application had been recorded as taking place even before council officers had met him to discuss it. After an investigation, a couple of officers retired from the local authority unsanctioned. Bizarrely, the leader of the section responsible for the planning process was then promoted. There is nothing in the Bill that provides real direction for local authorities on how to deal with such matters. It is extraordinary that these things still go on, yet we turn a blind eye to it by not relating the legislation to the real world of local government.

I could cite many other examples, including Southern Cross and the neglect of the elderly in my constituency, and non-monitoring as a result of the staff cuts that have taken place. Again, elderly people suffered but no one was held responsible. There was a refurbishment programme of an old people’s home—I raised this 12 months ago—which resulted in a year-long delay for elderly people being relocated to their homes. There was laundering of money via contracts to a builder. Again, there was an internal investigation that reported to part 2 of a cabinet meeting and there were no sanctions whatsoever against any officer. I wrote to the Secretaries of States of successive Governments on all those matters to call for an inquiry, but there was no response and no action was ever taken.

I am using my local authority as one example, but there are others across the country. My point is that the Bill seems to be irrelevant to what is happening in my local authority and many others across the country. It is irrelevant to the concerns about corruption raised by Transparency International and to our concerns about good governance and accountability at the local level. I hope that there might be an opportunity to amend the Bill and expand some elements of its remit to tackle some of the concerns that I, many of my constituents and many others across the country have. I hope that the Government are not fearful of grasping this nettle. Their main priority in the Bill should not be simply to let more contracts to the private sector; it should be to improve local audit and accountability. A key element of that is probity.

Let me turn to the proposal relating to local authority publicity. The all-party group on the National Union of Journalists, of which I am secretary, has been expressing concerns about some of the ideas raised throughout the consideration of this proposal. The NUJ represents members of the local press and media as well as local government officers working on the newspapers and journals published by local authorities. It is worth remembering, whatever has been said in the knockabout between the parties, that NUJ members working in local government abide by the same code of conduct as other journalists but, as local government officers, are not allowed to put forward party political views. Indeed, they could be sanctioned legally for doing so.

It has been argued that additional statutory powers are needed to strengthen the existing code of practice. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central said, there are existing powers for that and the Government could take action against local authorities that overstep the mark, but they have failed to do so. They have taken no legal action and there has been no judicial review whatsoever of any council newspaper. I find that surprising, given the outrage that has been expressed in this House and elsewhere.

Although many of us would like to see thriving local newspapers reporting what happens in council chambers and providing information to their local communities, in reality it is rare to find a single journalist even at full council meetings. I will circulate the information from the NUJ on just how many newspapers have gone to the wall over the past 20 years, how many jobs have gone in the industry and the impact that has had on quality journalism. The circulation of some of the papers that still exist is also very limited.

The council newspaper is therefore often the only way that local people can get some form of information on what is happening in the local authority. I have looked at this, as has the Communities and Local Government Committee and others, to see what impact council newspapers have had on the commercial viability of local newspapers, and no evidence whatsoever has been found. In some instances it is quite the reverse, with an element of synergy between the local press and the local authority in its publication of information. I am concerned that the proposed measure is unnecessary, because sanctions already exist. It will also undermine the dissemination of information by local authorities to their local communities. From the NUJ’s point of view, it could have as a consequence the loss of jobs at a local level, which we should all be concerned about.

There also needs to be some clarity. I have criticised Hillingdon council, but let me now try to defend it. It is currently seeking to ensure that the local community is properly informed on two key issues of local concern. One of them, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central mentioned, is the expansion of Heathrow airport, in which it is up against a large corporation that is sending out large amounts of information to the local community, most of which is inaccurate. It is only the local authority that is providing a balanced analysis of what is happening. The other issue is high-speed rail. I am anxious that Hillingdon council, or any other local authority, should not be debarred from ensuring that local people are kept informed about such pertinent issues, because it is absolutely essential that they are fully aware of the consequences if they are to exercise their democratic right and decide on the actions taken by local and national Government.

I would like assurances from the Minister that the activities of local authorities to inform local residents of matters such as high-speed rail or the expansion of Heathrow airport will not be curtailed by this legislation. I agree that putting press releases out is one thing, but if the local press has declined so badly, with a limited circulation and an inability to report on many issues, a press release will be inadequate. I understand the point the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole made about other mechanisms, particularly the internet, but not all people are connected, so they rely on the local authority journal that comes through the letterbox. I agree with what she said about having pictures of local councillors on every page, which I could possibly do without.

It is important that we in no way hamper the ability of local authorities to communicate with their residents. There may be opportunities for authorities to work together with the local press. I understand the point made about newspaper wrap-arounds, which have proved effective in some areas. That can assist greatly in communicating local ideas, but it does depend on the local newspaper’s circulation. Even the free sheets do not get everywhere, unfortunately. It might be possible—I would like the Government to look into this—to enable partnerships between local authorities and the local press whereby joint publications or similar could assist in the dissemination of local information.

[Chris Williamson]

Many local newspapers already print the council newspaper, thereby providing an income stream and additional source of welcome revenue for those newspapers, which are often under extreme financial pressure.

[John McDonnell]

I hate the word “synergy” but there is a potential for synergy between the local authority and some of the independent local press and publishers to disseminate information locally. One of the ideas that has come up is about local authorities participating in independent publishing companies—DCMS considered this previously—through joint ownership of a magazine or other communication that can go out to local residents. However, some flexibility from Government and amendments to the Local Government Act 2000 and the Local Government Act 2003 may be required to enable that sort of investment by the local authority in participating in independent companies.

There are constructive ways forward on this issue. If we take away the banter, whether it is about Hammersmith, or East End Life or whatever, we may arrive at a constructive way forward whereby local authorities can communicate with their residents and we can ensure that that is not used for purposes beyond good information dissemination and can protect jobs in the local authority and the local press.

British Sikh Community

Debate between Chris Williamson and John McDonnell

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Chris Williamson]

I concur with my hon. Friend. I was present for part of that debate. Regrettably, I had a commitment at the beginning and at the end of it, so I was not able to contribute, but none the less, I, too, was struck by the unity of purpose.

[John McDonnell]

It was a sin of omission by me, but that unity was brought about by the mobilisation of the community by the Kesri Lehar campaign. We should pay tribute to all those involved. More than 100,000 petitioners brought that campaign to the House.

[Chris Williamson]

I concur with my hon. Friend on that point. I received a proportion of that petition at the gurdwara in Derby a couple of weeks ago.

There is not time to touch on everybody’s contribution today, but all have been first class. I will, if I may, focus on just one or two. Let me start with the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal) who talked about Sikhism’s core values. It is important to stress those values and I thank him for outlining them. I wanted to touch on them myself. It is worth reiterating the fact that within Sikhism, there is a recognition of the equality of women and of all people and a commitment to hard work, to sharing with others and to standing up for people and protecting them.

That notion of sharing is something from which I have benefited on many occasions when I have been privileged to visit the local gurdwaras in Derby. As one of the three vegans in the House of Commons, it is nice to go to an event where all of the food on offer is vegetarian, so it is always a wonderful experience.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) talked about the death penalty that still pertains in India. He mentioned the cases of a couple of individuals and pointed out that we will be meeting the family of Professor Bhullar, who is languishing on death row, to discuss his case.